Write Saturday, September 17, 2011 on your calendar… It’s Software Freedom Day 2011 and we are again encouraging all Australian Apple User Groups to participate in local events, or organise your own.

Software Freedom Day (SFD) is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Their goal in this celebration is to educate the worldwide public about of the benefits of using high quality FOSS in education, in government, at home, and in business — in short, everywhere! The non-profit company Software Freedom International coordinates SFD at a global level, providing support, giveaways and a point of collaboration, but volunteer teams around the world organize the local SFD events to impact their own communities.

Register your Group

If you are interested participating in Software Freedom Day 2011, there are couple of things to need to do;

First, check to see if a team isn’t already registered for your area. If there is, contact them and see how you can join and help them. Otherwise, start your own.

Check out the SFD Start Guide, which tells you the basics of what you need to do to get up and running.

Then setup your team page. This will were “the public” will be able to find out where your team will be conducting your SFD Event.

Finally register your Software Freedom Day Team.

Note that teams registering after 02 August 2011 cannot apply for team supplies due to shipping deadlines. Currently there are enough funds to ship team packs to the first 200 registered teams, so get in quick

Register your group for Software Freedom Day 2011

Start Promoting

Once you have registered your team, start promoting Software Freedom Day and in particular your own event to your members and your local community.

You can download the official Software Freedom Day 2011 logo and other artwork from the SFD website and various presentations and other resources can also be downloaded for you to use.

Start contacting your local newspapers, community radio and TV stations now to ensure they can provide coverage before the event and perhaps even have a reporter and photographer at the event itself.

Free and Open Source Software for Mac OS X Update???

Free and Open Source Software for Mac OS X Disc Label

For Software Freedom Day 2010, AppleUsers.org compiled a Free and Open Source Software for Mac OS X DVD as part of our regular Disc of the Month project and this was distributed free of charge by a number of groups at Software Freedom Day 2010.

If your group is interested in distributing an updated version of this DVD at Software Freedom Day 2011, contact us using our Contact Form and select the “Disc of the Month Feedback” option, and we’ll see what can be done about compiling such an update.

Software Freedom Day 2010 Best Event Competition result announcements: Africa, Asia and Australia under the spotlights!

The SFD Best Event Competition is an international recognition of the efforts made by individual organizing teams in regards to spreading the importance of Software Freedom and reaching out to the relevant groups of people in their area. Each year three teams are chosen and the awards given to those teams are meant to help them further in their tasks for the years to come.

Among the 40 submissions SFD had received, the three teams that came out as outstanding organizers and promoters of Software Freedom in 2010 were spread over 3 different continents. and in no specific order, they were;

SFD team Melbourne, Australia

SFD team Yaoundé QV, Cameroon team

SFD team SPCF-CITE, Angeles City, Philippines

Also some entries which didn’t make it in the top 3 but definitely deserve to be mentioned included another Australian Group;